Sceen cap from youtube.com
The drag boats are racing on (formerly) Town Lake east of the I35 bridge.
Someone saw the writing on the wall over the demise of Aquafest. Actually, it got too big for itself, too comercial, and when attendance dropped off, it became unsustainable. The folks who lived near Festival Beach complained about the noise from the speed boats, to the south they complained about the noise from the motorcycle races, and then there was the mess left over from the massive raft race. I still mourn the loss of the 80s version of it, but towards the end, it attracted too many people from out of state, promoters kept adding stages and high profile national acts to perform on them, jacking up the price of admission, had a major loss of attendance from a peak of over 200K to just 44K, and after taking a $700K hit towards the end of the 90s, shut down the whole festival. By then, Aquafest had already lost that Austin hometown fun vibe, its soul to tourists, and to the greedy inept promoters. Imo, it was the most diverse and fun festival Austin ever had, so much so that Bergstrom AFB got in on the fun by adding Aero Fest to the mix.
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Balloon race at Aquafest
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